Bluetooth Smart: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and the Fix!

Presented at Black Hat USA 2013, Aug. 1, 2013, 10:15 a.m. (60 minutes).

Bluetooth Smart, AKA Bluetooth Low Energy (BTLE), is a new modulation mode and link-layer packet format defined in Bluetooth 4.0. A new class of low-power devices and high-end smartphones are already on the market using this protocol. Applications include everything from fitness devices to wireless door locks. The Good: Bluetooth Smart is well-designed and good at what it does. We explain its workings from the PHY layer (raw RF) all the way to the application layer. The Bad: Bluetooth Smart's key exchange is weak. We will perform a live demonstration of sniffing and recovering encryption keys using open source tools we developed. The Ugly: A passive eavesdropper can decrypt all communications with a sniffed encryption key using our tools. The Fix: We implement Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman to exchange a key in-band. This backward-compatible fix renders the protocol secure against passive eavesdroppers.


Presenters:

  • Mike Ryan - iSEC Partners
    Mike Ryan is a Security Consultant at iSEC Partners, an Information Security organization. He specializes in embedded platforms, hardware, and radio. At iSEC Mike performs penetration testing, code review, and incident response. He also performs independent security research, and has presented at ToorCon and ShmooCon. Mike's hobbies include hacking, hax0ring, and creating chaos.

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